Friday, August 26, 2005

When two guys meet each other face to face as a result of first meeting on gaydar, what’s the average time between their first online contact and seeing each other in the flesh? I’ve never worked it out accurately, but for me it feels like around 80% of meetings occur within 3 hours of first contact. Last Wednesday was one of the few that had a much longer gestation period.

Gaydar has two main methods of communication – the chat rooms where communication is really instant, and the so-called online or instant messages which take several minutes (or longer) when both guys are online but wait for you if you’re offline. It usually takes longer to arrange things via instant messages.

I’d been communicating for a while with a guy in Paddington via instant messages. I’m not sure how he found me, and we never seemed to be logged on at the same time, so it took over a week to get to the point where I asked him for his postcode (so I can look him up on multimap.com) and his mobile phone number. Then there was the problem of co-ordinating our diaries, but finally last Wednesday it seems like the meeting is going to happen after work.

Wednesday lunchtime I send him a txt msg to check he still wants to meet, and to find out his exact address. I get the reply quite quickly, he’ll meet me at the tube. But then I get another txt msg,

text me when you get to paddington i will come and meet you and dont mean to be rude but your not rent are you?

I wish! Of course, I am happy being the age I am but I enjoy life so if I was young enough to be rent I’d have more of it to look forward to!! Even though I know he’s in his 40’s, for some reason he must be new to this so I send a simple reply to re-assure him

No, I’m not rent LOL! See you later, GB

Again I get the reply quickly

ok just got a little worried a i have never done this before see you later

So, he’s never done this before? What does he mean? Most likely is that he’s new to online cruising, although there is a small possibility that he’s been married and that didn’t work out because he finally admitted to himself he’s gay. I guess I’ll have to work out which later.

When I meet him, as soon as he opens his mouth I decide that he’s got a slight camp twang to his voice. Almost inperceptible to the untrained ear, but it’s clear to me that if he’s been living a life pretending that he’s not gay then he’s been deceiving himself for ages!

“So you’ve never done this before?” I ask.

“Well I’ve had a couple of long term relationships, but I haven’t been on gaydar for very long. Sorry about the question earlier, I was just panicing pointlessly!”

So I've got my answer, he’s simply new to gaydar. He’s a nice guy and we have a satisfactory session. Afterwards we lie on the bed and cuddle. He’s a civil servant working for Camden council, and it’s clear that he likes travelling. He’s going to visit a friend near Malaga in Spain next month, perhaps New York later in the year, and he’s got a holiday planned on the Siberian Express sometime next year too.

I’m not sure what’s happening to me. I really used to enjoy meeting guys for one-off sex-sessions like this. Although orgasms are enjoyable, from many other points of view I’m not enjoying this lifestyle that I’ve given myself. I don’t know how to resolve the situation with boyfriend number 1 (Things are still difficult with boyfriend number 1), sometimes I think I’m being stupid risking my 16 year old relationship, and sometimes I think this lifestyle is a symptom of deep malaise. Perhaps the relationship counsellng which we’re going to have next month will help.

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I'm a gay man, living in London UK. My blogging pen name is GB, which stands for Gay Banker.

Professionally, I'm an investment banker, which unfortunately is an occupation that's been rather out of favour with the general public in recent years. However, I like to think that I'm one of the good guys :-). I'm also an agony uncle. Please refer to my 'About me' page for more information.

Requests for advice welcome, but please be prepared for anonymous publication in the Dear GB category. Also please check the Dear GB archives in case any of the existing postings can help. Reader's stories also welcome. Note that any e-mails which are accidentally routed to the junk-mail folder will almost certainly get missed.